


Wake-up Call

by fishpoets



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Falling In Love, Kissing, Lazy Mornings, Love Confessions, M/M, Slice of Life, except not???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 18:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10747707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishpoets/pseuds/fishpoets
Summary: Falling in love is deceptively simple. Admitting it is trickier.





	Wake-up Call

**Author's Note:**

> me, a fool: hey let's write a love confession scene without a) any confessing b) even using the word love 
> 
> idek if this works but it's been sitting on my computer for literally months so you know what? it's Done. enjoy!!

 

Jesse McCree is a light sleeper. Has been all his life, so far as he can remember. It's how you survive to be nearly forty when you've got danger always snapping at your heels. Don't take much to wake him up.

 

It's why he notices straight away when the blankets shift.

 

Sprawled on his stomach, eyes still closed, he takes stock: he's naked, for one. An auspicious start. Left hand: missing, right hand: under the pillow, but no Peacekeeper in reach. Both legs: still there. Pain: nothing unusual. Sheets: comfortable, if not the best quality. They smell familiar. The soft sounds of moving cloth: he's definitely got company.

 

"You think very loudly."

 

He smiles into the pillowcase. "Mm, whassat, darlin'?"

 

More rustling cloth. “Almost as loud as you snore. It is a wonder you haven't been hunted down in your sleep, with how vigorously you advertize your presence.”

 

Jesse rolls against the bedcovers, turns his head so he can speak without ingesting a mouthful of fabric. "Jus' woke up, an' m' already bein' insulted," he mumbles through his grin.

 

He can barely discern the pad of two quiet footsteps before the light beyond his eyelids dims and the mattress dips. A hand lays on the mess of his hair and brushes it away from his face. Long, rhythmic strokes. Gentle. If Jesse were a cat, he'd be purring.

 

Humming will have to do. He relaxes under the touch. The air's warm, the bed's warm, the sheets smell like his favorite fresh memories; the hand in his hair could kill him in a hundred different ways, but Jesse's not afraid. It's a good feeling, trusting someone. Leaves him happy as a pig in mud.

 

He's just about fallen asleep again when the hand switches allegiance without a lick of warning. It tweaks his ear, sharp. _Pain: ow??_

 

"Get up." The weight leaves the mattress as Jesse rolls on to his side, groaning. "There is no time for lazing."

 

More rolling brings Jesse to his back. He stretches, full body, curling his appendages: five fingers, ten toes. Flops down with a sigh and rubs his hand over his face to expel the last of his drowsiness. Slides open his eyes.

 

Hanzo is standing by the dresser looking down at him, lips dancing with the hint of a smirk. Naked, he sure is a sight; all unbroken curves and planes of hard muscle under smooth skin, his dark hair swept over one shoulder.

 

Sleek but sweet, sleep-rumpled. There's a pillow crease faint on his cheek.

 

Jesse wets his dry lips. “Mornin', handsome,” he croaks.

 

Hanzo tuts but the lines around his eyes are smug. He grabs Jesse's prosthetic from the nightstand and hands it to him. Jesse sits up to refit it, grits his teeth through the icy jab as organic nerves meet synthetic. Next comes the usual diagnostics: flex the fingers, twist the wrist. Everything working as it should be.

 

Hanzo picks Jesse's shirt off the floor where he'd flung it last night and shakes it out. He folds it up neat, adds it to the pile of laundry he's building on the seat of the chair.

 

Watching him makes satisfaction stretch and sigh through Jesse's limbs. Damn if he didn't hit the jackpot with this one. Hanzo really is beautiful, his skin striped across with pale lines from the light spilling through the slats of the window blinds, painting the contours of his powerful body. One of them highlights a purple bruise sunk into the meat of his side – the start of a trail of marks that run hot over the crest of his hipbone and down into the well-defined valley between torso and thigh. Jesse tongues his canine, grinning. Good memories, there. He's of a mind to revisit them.

 

Hanzo throws a pair of boxers in his face. Clean, luckily.

 

“Stop leering and get dressed.”

 

Obedient, Jesse slips his feet through the legs and lifts his hips just enough to shimmy the boxers up. He slumps back on the bed with a sigh to continue admiring his companion. When they get naked he's usually too busy _doing_ to pay due attention to _seeing._ It's nice to have a minute just to look.

 

Hanzo pulls on his own underwear and a pair of running pants. He pauses, rubbing his thumbs absently under the waistband, brushing over faded toothmarks, then reaches for Jesse's Stetson, sitting on top of the dresser. Places it on his head. He squints a bit and smirks, lop-sided, puts his fingers to the brim and tips the hat. _Howdy, partner_. A perfect imitation of Jesse.

 

Some days things just hit you different. Like the light falls from an angle you never saw before, and suddenly something you thought you knew inside and out and from the bottom of your heart looks entirely new. 

 

And often it ain't the big things that have the most impact. It's the small stuff that knocks the breath out of you. The little moments, the shit you don't even think about 'cause it happens every day.

 

Jesse knows this lesson well. He learned it early, has lived through it again and again. Times slows, and for a second you can see everything clearly. Like flicking a switch: _click_ , and the gun in your hand makes sense. 1-2-3, the bullets hit the cans, dead-center. _Click:_ The tough, scarred s-o-b who dragged you kicking and screaming into working at his beck and call reams you out again, and you realize it's 'cause he cares – really, truly _cares_ about your sorry ass. You realize he'd risk his life for you. And that's when you start trying.  _Click:_ And you keep on trying, until the moment you look around at your black-ops crew, sitting in silence together before a mission the way you've done a hundred times, and you realize there's an energy in the air you never noticed before. One that chills you right to the bone. And you know. You just _know_. It's the final nail in the coffin's lid; you're gone within the week.

 

Then one morning, years later, you watch a man you've been dallying with make fun of you and you think, _well, goddamn._

 

Danger comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes you unwittingly open your heart to it and it just waltzes right on in. Even Jesse, with all his experience and paranoia, hadn't prepared for this. More fool him.

 

Hanzo laughs, rich as thick velvet. He removes the hat and puts it back on the dresser. Plucks a t-shirt from the drawer and pulls it on over his head. When his face re-emerges he's still smiling. His hair's all mussed.

 

Jesse's whole world is tilting sideways.

 

Despite his years of poker playing he must let something slip, because Hanzo stops combing his fingers through his hair and gives him an odd look, eyeing him up like how he judges angles for shooting.

 

“Jesse? Is something the matter?”

 

Jesse shakes his head. “Naw. Ain't nothin'.”

 

“You are being very quiet. It is not like you.”

 

“Just baskin' in your presence, darlin'.” Jesse adds his most reassuring smile for effect. “Only been awake five minutes, anyhow.”

 

“That does not usually deter you.”

 

Jesse shrugs. He stands from the bed, sighing at the twinge in the small of his back, and walks over. He reaches for Hanzo's hip with his metal hand, uses his flesh one to tip up his chin. Hanzo lets him. Not even a hint of hesitation, only his throat bobbing under the backs of Jesse's fingers as he swallows. His pulse is steady, his eyes deep and welcoming. Jesse's so _lucky._ What in God's name did he do to deserve this?

 

Doesn't matter right now – he's got more important matters to attend to.

 

Hanzo's lips are soft and warm. He makes a pleased noise low in his throat as Jesse curls his tongue along the roof of his mouth.

 

Any other morning his archer would be pulling away, wrinkling his nose and snitting about morning breath. Jesse's expecting it, even. Something about the revelation burning in his veins must translate through his tongue, though, because Hanzo is unusually passive. Instead of taking control he simply wraps his arms around Jesse's shoulders, holding him steady as he wrecks himself on the slide of their lips.

 

When they part Jesse keeps Hanzo close, forehead to forehead. Hanzo's hands rub his sides, up and down, up and down.

 

“What was that for?” Hanzo asks quietly.

 

“Do I need a reason to kiss you?”

 

“You don't often do so like that.”

 

“No? Guess I gotta up my game, huh?”

 

His quip earns him a suspicious squint. Hanzo pulls back and taps him on the temple with the pad of his finger. “Your thoughts are loud, as I said, even when your mouth is not. What are you fixating on in that scruffy head of yours?”

 

“I told you, sweetheart, it ain't nothin'.”

 

The thin furrow between Hanzo's brows deepens.

 

“Jesse, you-” he stops, bites his lip. “Always, since I first joined Overwatch, you have been... refreshingly plain with me. Honest, in the way you speak. I know we have become - _friendlier_  since then, but I'd hope you could continue to be so." 

 

Jesse doesn't know what to say. He _wants_ to be honest, he _does_ , but it wars with his fear of tipping the balance. This strength of feeling can only make things change.

 

He opens his mouth, closes it. “Nothin's wrong, not in the way you're thinkin',” he says slowly, “it's only...”

 

Hanzo stares at him, gaze shifting back-and-forth between Jesse's eyes as if the right would tell him secrets the left would not. The scared kid, the Blackwatch in him wants to hide, but Jesse can't stop staring either.

 

Hanzo's more grey now than he was when they first met. Got it creeping into his brows. He wears it well. It's not hard to picture his whole head turned silver and white, wrinkles grown deep in his skin. He'd wear old age with dignity. Noble, like a king. Jesse can see it in his mind's eye right now. If his luck keeps up, he might get to see it in person one day. Maybe he'll get to watch it happen – slowly, over years. If he's there at Hanzo's side, he can make sure those lines are from smiling and laughing. Creases that grace the corners of his eyes and dimple his cheeks. Lines from a life that's been _lived_ , not merely suffered through.

 

It's a good thought. A man needs goals to work towards. But it's frightening all the same. Overwhelming. He's weak with wanting it.

 

“Alright,” he sighs, “if we're bein' honest, there is something. Nothin' bad, I swear, just – I don't think I'm ready to share, not yet.”

 

“Very well.” Hanzo nods sharply. “I understand. You needn't explain it to me, but remember: neither must you pretend you are fine if you are not.”

 

Jesse nods, wordless. He gathers Hanzo's hands in his, lays kisses on the bumps of his knuckles. “Oh, honey,” he breathes out over Hanzo's cool fingers, “I'm a thrice-damned fool.”

 

Hanzo hums quietly. “Debatable.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Some may call you a fool, but damned? No. I do not believe such a thing.”

 

Jesse huffs. “That's real sweet o' ya to say, Hanzo,” he starts with a wry smile, “but I think we both know--”

 

“No.” Hanzo reaches up and cups Jesse's cheeks firmly between his broad palms. “Listen to me. If you and Genji are so insistent that there is – is _good_ in me, that I am worthy of my place here, then you must claim the same for yourself.” His dark eyes are burning, fierce. “I will not accept anything less.”

 

Stunned, Jesse blinks. His throat feels thick, his heart too big for his ribs. He tips forward and buries his face in Hanzo's hair. Hanzo stiffens for a moment, then relaxes. He reaches up to cup the back of Jesse's head, gentles him against the crook of his neck. Wraps his other arm around Jesse's waist and pulls him closer.

 

They stand together like that for a good while before Hanzo pulls back. He drags his hands down to hold Jesse's, strokes the insides of his wrists. Struggles visibly with his words. “You should put some clothes on,” he eventually says. “You're going to be late for your mission briefing.”

 

“Yeah.” Jesse straightens and clears his throat. Hanzo lets go of his hands. Back to business. “Yeah. You goin' for a run?”

 

“I am.” Hanzo pauses, asks tentatively, “Will you... join me for breakfast, after?”

 

“'Course I will,” Jesse replies. Hanzo looks nervous, but when he meets Jesse's eyes he smiles softly. The fluttering panic in Jesse's chest calms and settles into something warm. He bends and kisses the smile from Hanzo's lips. “'Course I will, darlin'. Wouldn't miss it for the world.”

 

 


End file.
